Through the Lens
by HyperMint
Summary: There is a camera in the Burke house. It's seen better days and have been exiled to a top shelf downstairs. Neal can't help wondering about it. Full summary inside. 9-11 attacks involved in later chapters. Reader discretion advised.


Summary: There is a camera at the Burke household that is tucked away in a corner of the bookshelf downstairs. It's a camera that has seen better days, and Neal does wonder about its presence in the house and the role it has in the life of his best friend and partner.

Because, if Neal can draw up the most amazingly complex things and turn the subject matter from beauty to destruction, then Peter can take destruction and turn it into the most heartbreakingly beautiful scenes ever caught on film.

But some scenes were never meant to be caught.

Especially not like this.

But, at heart, some of the most beautiful things a camera can catch are right in the middle of some of the worst situations.

* * *

AN: Please bear with me on this.

This a story that is something I've thought about for all of five minutes the other day. It will eventually be part of a crossover with Covert Affairs and Necessary Roughness that will be posted on the eleventh anniversary of September 11, 2001.

Now, from what I have figured, Peter and Neal had no idea that each other really existed during the tragedies, so that is how I'm writing their characters.

As for the events themselves, I mean no disrespect to anyone who may have been involved and is reading this. Or who may have been involved and is not reading this, if that makes sense. I understand that the events have a long reaching affect on a lot of people, and I will try my best to honor that.

Also, there are countless people involved in the events that have taken pictures and those pictures may not see the light of day. When I started thinking about this, I thought that there were a lot of cameras around New York at the time. Why couldn't some of the photographers take pictures and never touch a camera ever since? That's sort of what I'm trying to get at here.

So, yeah.

I could dedicate this story to a lot of people. But this will be dedicated to those who had cameras and were able to document the Towers from the inside of the attacks.

Thank you for documenting what you saw and for letting others take their own peek through the lens.

* * *

(Please see/ read to end of chapter before you send me a PM or review or something. It is explained in UPDATE.)

* * *

Neal Caffrey knew quite a few things about Peter Burke. As Peter, in return, knew quite a few things about Neal.

One of those things was Neal's almost insatiable curiosity once something catches his eye.

This was the case one afternoon in May.

He had been in the neighborhood and decided to visit with Elizabeth since Peter was off helping another division. Neal, for one, still didn't know what Violent Crimes wanted with a White Collar agent, but he was a conman and not useful when it came to matters within the many divisions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Besides, he was content to keep tabs on anything of potential interest within the borders of the White Collar division.

Anyway, Neal visited with Elizabeth for a while until she had to run to the store and he volunteered to stay and watch the cooking while she did so.

Seeing her off, Neal took the time to snoop around the downstairs.

It hadn't been anything he hadn't seen in the year and a half since he'd been working with Peter, but Neal always felt comfortable scoping out his surroundings to make sure he knew what had changed since his last visit and to note any difference.

Keeping an ear out for the timer, Neal wandered over to the mantel, but nothing had been moved. Everything was still where he remembered them and he soon grew bored of that area and moved over to the bookcase.

Right away, he noticed some of the books had been moved around. Some had been taken off and new ones put in their place. There were the usual books about a majority of things from home gardening – Elizabeth, he knew – to Roman history books.

Neal gave those an especially fond look.

At first glance, Peter was someone who liked doing things by the book if possible, was addicted to good coffee (as he should, but Neal wasn't one to judge considering his own addiction to fine wine), loved baseball to near obsession, was incredible at his job – which Neal could personally attest to -, loved his wife and was a good husband in return.

But to those that stuck around to know him, he loved puzzles and mysteries almost as much as Neal himself did. He was open to thinking outside the box and wasn't opposed to stepping a bit over the line to get results. He was a whiz with numbers and a scholar of primarily Roman classics and history of the ancient city.

Neal hadn't known about the Roman aspect of his friend's hobbies until he had unthinkingly opened his mouth a few months ago. He didn't make that mistake again.

In any case, Neal knew that if he should ask, Peter would take the time to explain any and all things Roman in a way that he could understand.

Neal moved on from the Roman books and chuckled as he found a book on Parisian art. It looked like Peter was trying to learn something from his world. It was actually kind of sweet. But Neal knew that if confronted, Peter would tell him that it was only fair that he tried to understand something of Neal's world as Neal had been dropped into his. Peter was like that.

It didn't matter that Neal had volunteered. Peter would still tell him that he didn't have much of a choice. And anyway, Neal was content with their arrangement.

The objects on the bookshelf hadn't much changed except for one or two now strewn about the room. One of them - something obviously decorative and from Elizabeth as he doubted Peter much appreciated the appeal of ceramic felines – had claimed a spot on the kitchen table.

That one, Neal left, but went over to the coffee table and retrieved the other one. He held it in his hands and studied the obviously cherished snow globe.

It had surprised him at first, but having the Halloween themed globe visible year-round was just one of the quirks that made Peter that much more interesting. The only reason that he knew it

was Peter's, was because he would reach up and retrieve it when he was thinking on a particularly difficult problem.

But, Neal realized that the more time he spent at the Burke house, the more he would see Peter reach up to take it down. So, it wasn't just on occasion. Actually, it had been only recently that Neal himself would find the globe with his eyes and reach up a finger to skim it. Of course, Neal had always wondered about that, the story that it seemed to share with Peter.

The palm-sized globe was set on a pumpkin base and the ghost inside was made of some sort of metal that still retained a shine. But, no matter how much Neal wondered, he felt a certain amount of pride that prevented him from asking about it. It was like he'd decided to solve the puzzle himself, but without his knowing about it. It was a matter of time, though, until he couldn't stand it anymore and made Peter spill the story. Everyone who knew Neal could attest to his need to know the backstory about any particular anomaly.

This was certainly an anomaly.

But, Peter had never objected to his handling of the seemingly precious globe, so Neal retrieved a stool from the kitchen to stand on in order to put it back in its spot. But it was as he was putting it back, that he found something else on the top shelf.

He never really thought about looking on the seemingly bare top shelf. It had seemed odd that Peter had never used that shelf for anything and it was even stranger that Elizabeth hadn't touched it either. But now, he saw that there _was_ something there.

It was at the very back of the shelf, against the far wall. Because it was starting to get dark, Neal couldn't see it very well, so he carefully reached up and scooted the object closer to the edge. Cursing Peter's taller height, Neal stood on tiptoe to make sure that it wouldn't fall. He blinked once he had the object safely in his hands.

It was…

A camera.

One that had seen better days.

There was a thin layer of dust on it that told Neal it had rarely been handled. And even then, it was seen briefly since it had been exiled to the top shelf.

There were a few small dents in it, and it was pretty scratched, but it was clear that it had been loved. The camera was one of those professional ones that had fancy accessories and Neal peeked back up on the shelf to see if it had any up there. The lenses that accompanied the camera were also back there.

Looking back to the camera, he looked for a memory card, but wasn't able to find it. Shrugging, he closed the memory card holder and gave it a good stare.

For some reason, Peter and Elizabeth had a camera in their house that they seemingly shoved onto a shelf and – for the most part – forgot about it.

Now, _this_ was an anomaly.

* * *

AN 2: UPDATE! 8-15

I just had someone tell me that this needs to go in Crossover. Just to be clear: no, it doesn't.

'Through the Lens' is solely a White Collar story. It is one of three stories that will lead up to a fourth, bringing all three mentioned together.

1. Permanent Images in Covert Affairs

2. Through the Lens in White Collar

3. TBA story in Necessary Roughness

4. CA/ WC/ NR crossover.

Okay? I apologize for any confusion, I guess it wasn't as clear as I thought.


End file.
